2013 Q1 Update

So, yes its been a long time since I wrote. I never claimed to be a regular blogger, so get off my back. Truth is, I've been too busy to pee lately, let alone write a blog. Which has created a whole other set of issues, but I won't get into those. This isn't a medical blog. It's just a blog blog.

School is in full effect. I forgot what it was like to stay up until 4 am. Now I remember. It sucks. As a refresher course in the life of KB, I am in graduate school, attempting to get my master of public health degree from the lauded  Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina. I'll root for the Heels against Duke, but other than that, I've never been a Carolina homer, but the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina (you have to say it like that. Respect) is the second best public health school in these United States of America (better than HARVARD, y'all), so I will enjoy that diploma. If it ever actually becomes mine. Right now, even though I'm so close, it seems so far away. This semester has consisted of my big master's paper (like a thesis with less research rules and I don't have to defend it), comps (a big test that if I don't pass, this is all for naught), and a class - Intro to Environmental Health. I make it a rule to not speak on the internet about things I'll one day wish to take back if they are ever read by certain people, so I'll just leave it as I think my ENVR class is a little, um, intense for an intro. If I don't get my MPH because I don't get the grade I need in that class for the aforementioned implied reasons, there will be a thesis length rant on this here blog about my true feelings.

My paper is a bear, but very interesting. I ended up doing it on something that I didn't really have a huge interest in and now I'm, like, knowledgable on fracking. For those that don't know, fracking method of generating oil and natural gas from shale rock formations. There are questions surrounding the process and it releases some chemicals into the ground water and stuff, so its a public health issue right now. I don't want to say more because you should be able to preorder my debut novel, "Fracking and You: how to get oil from rocks without killing people" from amazon within the year.

Comps are an interesting little experiment the school likes to put us through. Not every school has comps. I considered transferring when I found that out. But then I wouldn't be getting my degree from the GSOGPH at UNC. You have to write 3 papers in 9 hours and then they make you wait a month to see if you passed. (a month is 30 days, just in case you forgot. 3-0 days. 720 long hours) And they basically tell you that, short of gathering up your notes from courses you took 3 years ago, there's no way to prepare. When I get diagnosed with the ulcer I'm sure has formed in my stomach, I'm naming it Comps. I took those on March 2nd. Even though they tell you that they will inform you by mail as to whether or not you passed, my new favorite hobby is to sit at my computer, log on to the comps site, and see if they slipped and posted the results. I spend an immense amount of time doing this. Staring at the screen and hitting refresh. Hitting refresh.... hitting refresh.

In other, non school related news:

I feel like this whole year has been a haze of moving boxes, leases, security deposits, and moving vans. In October or November of 2011, Terrance moved to Dayton (Miamisburg), I followed in March of 2012, but we moved to Springfield because it was between our jobs, then six months later, we settled in Delaware, OH, which is about 20-30 minutes north of Columbus. Life is better when you don't spend 20% of your day in the car. We live in the upstairs of an old house that's been converted to apartments. Over the last year, we have paid about $3300 in deposits, and moved about 1,000 miles (just broken up into 3 different moves). The original goal was to stay in Delaware for the year and then move on to Cleveland, but we're really liking it here. We can walk to shops and restaurants for little things we need and to go out, but Columbus is close for bigger stuff.  I have finally fulfilled my lifelong goal of being able to walk to work. Delaware is cute. You should visit, Internet.

Terrance has a few siblings he didn't know about and my sister had a baby, so I'm an aunt like 7 times over now. That's pretty exciting. God bless the internet. Also, my family continues to be functionally dysfunctional at every turn. I'm certainly not going to write the whole thing here, especially since I've sold the rights to Lifetime Movie Network and its been greenlit for a untitled project starring Tori Spelling and Harry Hamlin that is shooting in Vancouver right now, but every time I turn around, it feels like I've landed in Genoa City.

Another Die Hard movie came out. God Bless John McClane.

I'm running the Cooper River Bridge Run this year. I was doing really well with training and was basically on track to win in outright and then school got in the way and I am fairly certain I'm going to die. If I live, I'm doing the Indy Mini on May 4. If I survive that, I have epidemiology this summer, where I plan on growing Comps' brother, Epi the Ulcer.

There was other stuff. But its hard to remember. I should get back to work anyway. Hitting the books now. Have a midterm that's worth 40% of my grade to bomb. Deuces.

my list

So, i haven't posted in a really long time. Part of it is that i just haven't had time to. here is a recap of my life since January:

We moved.

We live in Springfield.

Terrance works outside of Dayton, I work outside of Columbus. Its not ideal, but its preferable to unemployment. We're making it work.

Terrance cut the tip of his finger off at work.

I ran the Cooper River Bridge Run.

People are really into the Hunger Games.

that's kind of it for lately. the main reason that i got on today was that i've been making this mental list of stuff that I think are sort of rules of life (at least my life) and i wanted to share them:

1. if a motel advertises free cable on a sign outside, do not stay there

2. I think being chubby in high school and a funny adult are directly correlated. I think this because I am obviously both. Being a chubby adult gives you no benefit that I've been able to find, except maybe making your friends look thinner in photographs, which makes them like you more.

3. while online school is probably as hard as on campus school, it will never get the same respect, which makes it perfect for someone like me, who often sees herself as a martyr

4. instead of math and science, i think some people could really benefit from taking a few courses in being polite. If you think about it, no one is ever like "she's so sweet. she can calculate the log of X. I think I'll ask her to coffee" (i'm not saying that you shouldn't have any math and science. I'm just saying that once you hit like a calculus level, you're good. Theoretical physics is only useful for like 4% of the population. Being nice to others is useful for the other 96%. 96% is more than 4%. I know this because math is important to me, but so is being nice an polite and not huffing at people because they forgot to take their belt off in the security line at the airport).

5. no matter what neighborhood you are in, people from all socioeconomic backgrounds will stand outside at night for dairy queen.

6. i'm simultaneously jealous and judgmental of women who dress up to fly ("i mean, REALLY. look at those heels" and "i mean, really look at those HEELS")

7. sometimes i realize that i'll never actually realize some of my dreams and it makes me sad. like being a size 8 or living in new york or not worrying about money or seeing prague or paris or a costa rican rain forest. there's no "but then i think of how awesome my life really is and i feel better" end to that. i just get sad with the realization that i've made choices that have dictated that i can't do certain things and that sometimes, life just isn't fair. and then i have a diet coke and i get on with my day, which is what everyone else should do that doesn't live in a warzone. unless they're having a very rough day/week/month/year and then they can wallow. because everyone needs to do that sometimes. but if you do it, own it. take your clothes that button and/or zip off, load up a tray with snacks and a day's worth of diet coke and sit/lie in bed all day and watch a Ghost Whisperer marathon. cry for bit. the only thing worse than being consumed with self pity is not owning it. i, personally, own the shit out of mine. on a somewhat regular basis. if this blog is nothing else, its a testament to the fact that i have no issue feeling bad for myself and letting other people know about it.

8. i actually love the fact that its so hard to get sand out of everything after you've been to the beach. i think its comforting.

9. ikea makes me happy. so happy that i don't care if you think i'm materialistic because i'm too busy looking at all my new stuff from there that i can't even here what you're saying

10. your hair changes every seven years. this is not useful at all since there is nothing you can do about it

So, I've started about 45 posts since I last posted. Things haven't been great lately and even though I use this blog as my release, I'd never want to put anything on here that I would want to take back.

Here's the thing - living apart has been super tough on Terrance and I. Lots of animated "conversations". I'll leave it at that. Let go and let God. Love and light. Something.

On to better things. I have a job interview Thursday! Its for the OSU health plan. I'm nervous and excited and thankful that someone thinks my resume is worth a second look.

I have about 6 weeks left as an NC resident. Which means I have 6 weeks to get the house together, our affairs settled, say good bye to everyone. Yikes. Oh, and find a job. :)

God bless us, everyone.

we throw a holiday party every year. its a 'holiday' party because i'm super pc, but its a good old fashioned christmas party. we call it 'festivus' because my dad taught me 3 certainties in life: death, taxes and seinfeld is funny and should honored whenever possible. it doesn't take place on 'festivus' (december 23), we don't have a festivus pole or the feats of strength. its mostly just our friends, hanging out, eating, drinking and taking part in all around merriment. its usually a pretty good time and something i look forward to starting around october.

i usually spend a small fortune getting ready for it, but given everything going on, its just not going to be as big a thing this year. its low key this year. i didn't even buy a new outfit. for reals.

festivus is tomorrow. terrance is home. things are good.

belated thankgivings

I realized that i was supposed to be writing something I'm thankful for everyday. i haven't done that for like a week, so i'll give a few things.

I am thankful for hand sanitizer, lysol wipes, bleach, and extra trash pick up to come and get the mouse excrement laden things that Terrance and I have neglected since we moved in (just to be clear, when we left all this stuff in the garage, there was no mouse or mouse droppings).

I am thankful that Terrance comes home in 2 days.

I am thankful that my semester is almost over. I am not thankful that I have 2 huge projects standing in the way of my freedom. (we'll call that one a wash until Wednesday)

I am thankful for my wonderful parents, who have helped me out a lot throughout all of this. I like to play the role of a martyr so people will feel bad for me, but I'm really not doing this stuff alone.

I'm thankful that Panthers are on a win streak. I really do love them and feel bad that I haven't been as supportive as I should have been. In my defense, they've won 6 out their last 28 games.

It finally happened...

There was a moment on Friday night when if I had been able to come outside of my body and look at myself, sitting in a ball on my floor, surrounded by clothes and housewares and boxes and hangers, tears running down my face, sobbing so uncontrollably that I was about one sharp inhale away from passing out, I would have either slapped myself or offered to call myself a cab to take me away to a nice home for the weekend (one of those lovely ones that comes equipped with padded walls and lots of pharmaceuticals to help me get through the day).

How did I get there? Well, it turns out I don't deal with stress all that well. The running theme of this blog as of late has been my stress level, so its been building for a while. You know what else I'm not super good at dealing with? Not sleeping. Ask anyone I know. I can sleep through anything. I love to sleep. When I don't sleep, I'm not a very good person. So, you can only imagine what frame of mind I was in Friday night going off of 2.5 short hours of sleep. Thursday night I had a paper to finish. As usual, I waited until the last minute to really get into it. I was working on it all week. And by "working", I mean pulling my books out, looking over things, and really THINKING about what I was going to do. I put a lot of THOUGHT into this paper. I started writing it Wednesday night but got no where, so I had the lion's share to do Thursday (otherwise known as the night before its due). In my defense, I've had a little bit going on and other schoolwork to do, so its not really like it used to be when i had nothing else to work on and still waited until 8 hours before a paper was due to start researching it.

I finished the paper at 3am. 3:12, to be exact. Five whole hours and forty-eight whole minutes before it was due. I finally drifted off around 4-4:30am (just in time to catch the early news from the BBC, by the way. The world sucks right now, if you haven't been paying attention. But more on that later...), on the couch because there were too many clothes on my bed from going through my closet that I couldn't see anywhere to sleep on the bed. I slept from around 4ish to 6:30 when my alarm cruelly went off for me to get up and go to work. And, to paint you an accurate picture, it didn't just go off. I was justifiably a little scared that I'd sleep right on through the alarm, so I turned the volume all the way up. To around the decibel level of a jet engine, which was just a really fun way to wake up after not having been asleep long enough to complete a REM cycle.

After I peeled myself off of the ceiling, I got ready and went to work. That part's boring, so we'll skip it. There were reports sent and to do lists made and, honestly, some of the best health education since Prochaska proposed that whole stages of change thing. But I won't bore you with all that. We'll fast forward to me, taking things out of the attic, going through clothes, trying to figure out what is what and where to put it and how on earth I'm going to get everything done before our Christmas party.

And then Terrance called...

And I don't remember exactly what he said....

But I'm quite sure he'll never forget it...

Out of fear of ever repeating it again.

Whatever it was, it was something along the lines of him being tired or stressed or something he's apparently not allowed to be right now. I started to calmly explain to him that I was going through a lot and that I had so much to do and all along my voice was getting louder and my words were getting closer together and I'm pretty sure I jumped an octave at one point. By the end of my rant, I think the only ones really physically able to hear me were the dogs. And based on their faces, they didn't like it. My point was that I'm trying to finish up the semester and not fail, I'm trying to get my job done and my very big, very your-job-depends-on-it report to the state and the health department's accreditation stuff done, and I'm trying to take care of our menagerie, who have all had to go to the vet lately (which I have to miss some work for because Saturday vet appointments are reserved for people who don't wait until their dog's vaccinations lapse before thinking it might be a good idea to get them checked out. Otherwise known as losers), and I'm having to figure out when to have people come look at the house to fix it to sell, and I'm trying to find a job in Ohio, And I feel like I'm doing it all alone. And ALL he has to worry about up there is work. And I know he's working very hard. But still.

After I told him I didn't care to talk to him anymore and hoped he had a wonderful evening (that might be a very loose interpretation of what I said. I maybe might have said that I hoped he got his head out of a certain area of his anatomy. But the essence is basically the same), I crumpled into a ball on the floor and cried. Now, I'm not talking a tear or two welling up in your eye and escaping while slowly running down your cheek as you sniffle a bit and need to wipe your nose on your sleeve. I'm talking I CRIED. I'm talking a full body shaking, can't form words, eyes swelling shut, verge of hyperventilation, inconsolable event.

And, because life is super fun for me right now, after I finally caught my breath, I got up, dusted myself off, washed my face and straightened myself out, I finished going through the boxes I needed to. They weren't going to do it themselves, you know? And so, I got to sleep, on the couch again, at around 1am. And had to get up on Saturday at 7am to drop Charlie at the vet (he's a super well behaved cat so we have to drop him off so they can sedate him to do his wellness check and vaccinations. Such a cutie!). And then my dad came over and we went and picked up a couch for Terrance to use in his new apartment and cleaned out the garage and moved boxes and furniture and took trips to goodwill and habitat store. We did WORK, son.

Why is everybody working for the weekend, again?

Terrance admitted, with relatively little prodding, that I indeed have a substantial amount on my plate and apologized for having the nerve to have feelings of his own that I haven't approved yet. He actually, in all seriousness, offered to give up his promotion and his much deserved success and try to get a job at one of the stores in the Charlotte market again. He is a very sweet guy, even though he has the nerve to be human sometimes and get stressed out because he's living in a hotel 8 hours away from his family, friends and home. And he's doing it all for me and us and our future.

And he does tell me that he appreciates me... I just maybe don't always hear him. I'm too busy to hear such things, you know?

I got a full 8 hours of sleep last night, so I no longer feel like my head might snap right off of my body and roll across the room. And suddenly, it all feels slightly manageable. I just have to make lists and organize and keep my sense of humor and remember that I'm not actually alone.

I think we can handle this...:)

ramblings

i'm going to try to be a little better about blogging on the regular. i have a lot going on and i don't want to alienate my friends by bitching about it all the time, I might be taking it out on the internet tonight.

1. I miss my husband. There. I said it. I'm not an independent, don't need a man woman. I want him home. I know we'll be fine. I"m not worried. I just miss him.

2.I'd like to try and write everyday about something I'm thankful for. This will not happen, of course, but its good to have goals. I'm not very good at keeping my goals. If I was, I'd have an MD and be a size 6. But its a goal. Anyway, today I am thankful for the groomers at petsmart, who made my dogs smell good. Even better, the grooming process was a lot for them to deal with, so they're both exhausted and its funny to watch them fight sleep. God bless us, every one.